Social engineering
Also known as: social engineering · SE
Social engineering is manipulating people (not machines) into compromising security — the human attack surface.
- AI-generated phishing at scale.
- Convincing fake voices and emails.
- Lower cost, higher volume, harder to spot.
Why it's resurgent: AI removed the skill barrier to convincing social engineering. The counter is process: verify, don't trust surface realism, and slow down high-stakes requests.